/Career Advice

"Help, I See A Problem And No One Is Prioritizing It!"

tl;dr: “It feels like I'm the only one with glasses on! Getting a handle on this situation is a really important skill and there are a few good techniques for it. There's also a meta-problem here which you need to learn to handle if you want to enter leadership roles.” Nicole discusses how to approach this situation with your manager, potentially reconcile perspectives with them, and lean on peers.  

featured in #495

68 Bits Of Unsolicited Advice

- Kevin Kelly tl;dr: (1) Learn how to learn from those who disagree with you or even offend you. See if you can find truth in what they believe. (2). Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points. (3). Always demand a deadline. A deadline weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary and it prevents you from trying to make it perfect so you have to make it different. Different is much better. (4). Don't be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid because 99% of the time everyone else is thinking of that same question and is too embarrassed to ask it. (5). Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love, keep asking them “Is there more?” until there is no more.

featured in #494

"Help, I See A Problem And No One Is Prioritizing It!"

- Nicole Tietz-Sokolskaya tl;dr: “It feels like I'm the only one with glasses on! Getting a handle on this situation is a really important skill and there are a few good techniques for it. There's also a meta-problem here which you need to learn to handle if you want to enter leadership roles.” Nicole discusses how to approach this situation with your manager, potentially reconcile perspectives with them, and lean on peers.  

featured in #494

Productive Compliments: Giving, Receiving, Connecting

- Kent Beck tl;dr: “At it’s best, a compliment is a warm fuzzy. Receiving or giving a compliment blesses the day. At it’s worst, a compliment is a naked power play, an assertion of dominance. Giving and receiving compliments are not natural skills. This article summarizes what I’ve learned about giving and receiving compliments so far.” Kent provides specific and actionable advice around the semantics of human connection.

featured in #493

Data Will Not Tell You What To Do

- Mikkel Dengsøe tl;dr: “Data may give you a conclusive answer that changing the color of a button from yellow to green increases the conversion rate by 0.15ppts but will tell you nothing about the other ideas that would have had ten times more impact.” Mikkel believes that the best ideas are often complex and require persistence, and that intuition is heavily underrated. 

featured in #493

How Do You Spend Your Time?

- Marc Brooker tl;dr: “You thought you were productive, and getting a lot done, but they weren’t the things you, or your manager, thought were most valuable for your project and team. You’re busy, you’re productive, but it doesn’t feel right. It’s a problem I’ve faced before, which I think I’ve mostly solved for myself. Here’s some thoughts on what worked for me.”

featured in #492

Strength Dictates Weakness

- Andrew Bosworth tl;dr: Andrew, the CTO at Meta, discusses how “your greatest strengths almost certainly dictate your greatest weaknesses... I have always considered communication a strength of mine. I enjoy speaking and writing, and do so often. I am forceful in championing my point of view. It took years to realize that I was “communicating” so much that I wasn’t listening. I was either drowning out my peers or waiting for my turn to speak.” Andrew discusses how this was a pivotal moment of growth for him. 

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The Pleasure Of Pattern

- Kent Beck tl;dr: For over 20 years, Kent has asked why are so many programmers musicians? He’s finally able to answer this: “talent for music and programming occur together because accomplishment in each relies on enjoying seeing patterns. See a pattern, feel good, look for more patterns.” He believes his chaotic early life left him with a brain wired to crave moments of order... and the innate ability to see patterns led him to activities where he got frequent mental rewards, and this is what drives his desire to program. 

featured in #489

The Compounding Seeds Of Creativity

- David Heinemeier Hansson tl;dr: “Early on in my career, I learned a very important lesson about creativity: It can’t be saved for later. Creativity is perishable, just like inspiration. It has to be discharged regularly or it will spoil. And if you let enough of it go to waste, eventually your talents will sour and shrivel with it.” David discusses how the best folks are able to find creativity in the mundane parts of their jobs, and that is what separates them.

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Mastering Programming

- Kent Beck tl;dr: “From years of watching master programmers, I have observed certain common patterns in their workflows. From years of coaching skilled journeyman programmers, I have observed the absence of those patterns. I have seen what a difference introducing the patterns can make. Here are ways effective programmers get the most out of their precious 3e9 seconds on the planet. The theme here is scaling your brain.” 

featured in #488